Swordsmen in the Sky

by Donald A. Wollheim

Merrick, stunned by the transformation of the quiet city into this field of terrific battle, saw the Cosp airboats diving recklessly in all directions. As one shot past their window he glimpsed its occupants and shuddered as he saw them. In shape they were like huge six-foot spiders, but with a near-human head set upon their bulbous central bodies. Clinging to the deck of the long airboat, they were directing their poison-sprays, one of their number guiding the craft from the prow.

  In that first moment the battle had been almost even between Cosp and Corlan, light-gun and poison-spray striking up and down with equally deadly effect. But now from the swooping ships great fields of darkness were suddenly projected here and there over the city, areas of absolute lightlessness into which the Cosp ships unhesitatingly dived.

  “The darkness-projectors!” Murnal cried. “It is always the same—we can not fight against them and the Cosps overcome us, being able in some way to see in the darkness!”

  “But order all your light-guns to fire straight upward, then!” Merrick cried. “If they do that the Cosp ships can’t land on the pyramids whether in darkness or not!”

  Murnal’s eyes lit. “We will try it, O Chan!” He sprang toward the lift-chamber.

  Merrick, Narna beside him, looked out now across a scene that seemed out of nightmare, the spectacle of Corla struggling with the raiding spider-men. The huge city of black pyramids was a wild chaos of flashing light-guns and down-swooping Cosp airboats, blotted out here and there by the lightless areas of the darkness-projectors. Over it all swung the four great moons, three of crimson and one of vivid green. Cosp ships were swooping into the darkness-areas, a few already rising laden with captives and loot. But abruptly the tenor of the battle changed. Wreckage of Cosp airboats drifted in masses out of the dark areas, and other craft of the spider-men that tried to dive into the darkness they created beneath them were met by up-bursting hails of charges from the light-guns. The darkness-areas were vanishing, the Cosp ships recoiling—

  “They’re beaten!” Merrick cried. “They’re rising!”

  “Truly they rise!” Narna exclaimed. “Your order has repulsed them, O Chan!”

  “Beaten!” Merrick exulted. “And once we find a way to neutralize those darkness-projectors—”

  “Chan Merrick! Jhalan signals to the Cosps!” At Narna’s cry Merrick whirled. He had forgotten Jhalan and now saw that the big black-bearded Corlan, at one of the other great windows, had pointed his light-gun up and fired four shining charges up into the darkness. In answer to them a Cosp airboat was racing down toward them. Jhalan signalling to the Cosps—it crashed to Merrick’s brain that this attack was no fortuitous one but had been arranged with the Cosps in some way by Jhalan in the depths of his hate for the earth-man!

  Merrick leapt toward the other, jerking the long light-sword from his sheath more by instinct than by design. Jhalan, his light-gun sheathed, whipped his own sword out in time to meet him. The two blades glowed as one with white light as the deadly force of the hilts was released into them. Then Merrick felt his blade click against his enemy’s as they closed. He knew that the charged blades could not harm each other but that a touch of either meant death to the person touched.

  Jhalan handled his deadly weapon like a master, its shining length cleaving the air around the earth-man. But Merrick was for the moment his equal, old fencing lore coming swiftly back to him in this strange duel where a touch was death. Up and down—right and left—back and forth—the two shining light-swords wove like twin shuttles of death as the two rushed, stabbed, parried.

  Over the white heat of battle Merrick heard a cry from Narna, and as he whirled he saw something that froze the blood in his veins. The Cosp ship had swooped to hang level with the room’s windows and a half-dozen great spider-men poured into the room. Jhalan called something to them and Merrick in a glance saw that they had seized the girl Narna and were hurrying her onto their craft’s deck!

  Maddened by the sight, Merrick flung himself with desperate recklessness upon Jhalan, but the Corlan had called again and Cosps were rushing toward them. Poison-sprays were lifted toward Merrick, but there came a sudden interruption. Men were pouring up out of the lift-chamber with light-swords in hand, Murnal and Holk and Jurul and others! Jhalan leapt back and as Merrick sprang after him a whirled tube in the grasp of one of the Cosps struck his head and sent him reeling back. Jhalan was on the air-boat with the spider-men, and with Narna held upon it it darted rocket-like up into the night.

  Merrick rushed to the window with Holk and Jurul. The whole fleet of the Cosp raiders was moving southward, recoiling from the attack and vanishing swiftly in the weird moonlight, leaving the city in wild uproar behind them.

  “Narna!” cried Merrick. “Jhalan has her—he and the Cosps!”

  “Jhalan a traitor!” Murnal exclaimed. “To think that any Corlan should ever join forces with the Cosps as he has done, from jealousy and rage! He must have been in communication with them, and arranged this attack that he might carry away Narna!”

  “But I’ll find him—I’ll bring her back!” Merrick swore.

  Murnal shook his head sadly. “Impossible, O Chan Merrick. Jhalan has taken her with the Cosps southward, to the great Cosp city far beyond the mountains. None on Kaldar has ever entered that great city of the spider-men and returned.”

  “But I’ll enter—and return!” Merrick asserted. A cold purpose was replacing his first wild rage. “And not for Narna alone but for Jhalan. If he lives to aid the Cosps their attacks will be strengthened by all the information he can give them, and they will end by destroying Corla.”

  “It is true,” Murnal said, and the others murmured assent. “But why go yourself, O Chan? Why not send some of your warriors to attempt this venture?”

  “Because this lies now between Jhalan and myself,” Merrick answered. “Also, would I be fit Chan of Corla if I sent others where I dared not go myself?”

  The eyes of Holk lit. “Truly you are Chan!” the big veteran exclaimed. “And I for one follow when you start for the Cosp city! Jurul here, too, though he’s too shy to say so. Why, a dozen of us can fight our way into the spider-men’s city and out again, if need be!”

  The next hours passed for Merrick in a whirl of activity. While the fifth moon of Kaldar still hung in the west like a crimson wafer, the huge red sun was rising eastward to look down on a Corla different far from that of the day before. Already the Corlans were repairing their city’s injuries, recovering quickly from the night attack of the spider-men. Murnal reported to Merrick that while the city was joyful over its repulse of the Cosps, it was saddened by the news of Jhalan’s treachery and the abduction of their last Chan’s daughter.

  Merrick had decided that for his venture to the Cosp city a single airboat would hold the necessary party. No large force that he could take could battle successfully the overwhelming forces of the Cosps, and by limiting his companions to a dozen and taking but one craft their chances of reaching and penetrating the Cosp city were far greater, it being by stealth only that they could reach their goal.

  He inspected the airboats and on the recommendation of Holk and Jurul chose one of fifteen-man size and of unequalled swiftness among the ships of Corla. It was the first close glimpse of the craft that Merrick had had, and he found the airboats simple in design, long, tapering metal craft like racing-shells, but broader of beam, decked, and with low surrounding rail. They moved in the air by projecting ahead of them a shaft of the annihilating force of the light-swords and light-guns, which ceaselessly destroyed the air just in front of the craft and thus forced it on by the pressure of the air behind. The changing of this invisible force-shaft’s direction controlled the boat’s direction of flight, and the changing of its intensity regulated speed.

  The simple controls were at the prow, while at the stern and along the sides were light-guns of medium size mounted on swivels.

  For the remainder of that day, while the airboat was being made ready, Merrick slept, exhausted. When he woke h
e found awaiting him Murnal, who was to act with the remainder of the Council of Twelve as ruler of Corla during the absence of its Chan. It was night again, and on one of the great pyramid’s upper terraces the chosen airboat waited, the ten Corlans of its crew ready in it. Holk and Jurul were waiting with Murnal beside him.

  Murnal pointed down to the thronged streets as Merrick buckled on light-sword and light-gun.

  “The people wait to see you go, O Chan,” he said. “They know now that you are truly Chan and they are sad to see you start to what seems certain death.”

  “Certain death for Jhalan, perhaps,” Merrick answered grimly. “As for me, I’ll be back with Narna. While I am gone see that the scientists try that way of neutralizing the darkness-projectors I mentioned to you. Those projectors give off light-damping vibrations of some sort and could be neutralized and made ineffective by the proper opposing vibrations.”

  “We will try,” Murnal nodded, “and it may be that your way will give us victory again. Until you return, then, Chan Merrick.”

  Merrick rested his hand for a moment on the other’s shoulder, then strode out with Holk and Jurul onto the terrace. Night lay over Corla, and in its streets great throngs watched in death-like silence as the three stepped onto their airboat and it shot up over the city. In moments the mighty black pyramids of the city had dropped behind and beneath, and Merrick and his companions were gazing ahead into the darkness as their craft shot southward through the night toward the distant stronghold of the Cosps.

  V : OVER THE FUNGUS FOREST

  AS THEIR craft flew southward Merrick crouched with Holk and Jurul at its prow, the latter having the controls in his grasp. The airboat flew almost soundlessly, with only a low purring from the squat mechanism at the stern that produced the force-shaft which moved them onward. The ten Corlans of their crew crouched and lay along the craft’s sides.

  Merrick, peering ahead, could make out in the distance the dim black rampart of the great mountain-ring toward which they were flying. It grew rapidly colder about them as Jurul slanted the airboat upward as they approached the huge mountain wall. At last in freezing cold air they were racing over the huge range, gazing down in awe upon it.

  Merrick could see in the light of the two risen red moons that the giant peaks of the range were of a height unknown on earth, and that the great range itself was surprisingly regular in its circular shape. In the clefts between the mountains was white snow, but there was none on the great peaks, for they and the gigantic chasms and cliffs gleamed as though glassy-smooth, black and awesome masses.

  “They look as if they were of black metal,” Merrick commented to the men beside him, and was amazed at Holk’s answer.

  “They are metal, O Chan. That black metal exists in tremendous masses in Kaldar’s interior, and crops out here and there as huge mountain ranges or ledges. We and the Cosps and all other races use it for our airboats and buildings and almost all else.”

  “Metal mountains!” marvelled the earth-man.

  By the time that the great range dropped behind, all five of Kaldar’s moons were in the night heavens, bunched together in seeming for the time as they followed their separate orbits around their world. The sight of the stupendous, lonely black metal mountains in the light of the red and green moons was one that remained long in Merrick’s mind.

  As the metal mountains receded behind them Jurul slanted the craft downward and the air grew warmer again about them. They flew on at smooth, unchanging speed, noting below them the lower hills and scarps of the great metal range. Beyond these the moonlight disclosed smooth and rolling plains, over which they flew for hours. At last these gave way to a dark mass of vegetation that extended ahead and to either side as far as the eye could reach.

  As they arrowed above this, Merrick tried to estimate the length of the day and night of Kaldar, coming to the conclusion that they were not greatly different from those of earth. The period of Kaldar’s rotation, as he was later to learn, was some twenty earth-hours, so that he was not far wrong in the estimate he made when the huge crimson sun lifted from the horizon to their left.

  The coming of day disclosed the extraordinary nature of the forest over which they were flying.

  It was a vast fungus forest. As far as the eye could reach in all directions stretched the mass of great crimson growths, most of them twenty feet or more in height. They were monstrous of form, great central trunks with projecting arms, quite leafless, which gave them a grotesque appearance. They were crowded together in an unending sea swept by tides and currents of movement. Merrick thought at first that the things were swaying in a wind, but closer inspection showed him that the great growths were rootless and actually moving, crawling to and fro by their great groping arms, brushing and crowding against each other.

  From Holk and Jurul he learned that this fungus forest was of vast extent and feared by all on Kaldar. For the great growths did not, like ordinary fungi, prey upon other plants, but upon animals. Any luckless Cosp or Corlan or living thing of any kind that fell into the forest was doomed, since before he could move the great growths would have grasped him, suffocating and crushing him, and battening upon his body as ordinary fungi do upon plants.

  For all of that day their craft flew steadily south over the unending, crawling crimson masses of this forest of horror. His companions assured Merrick that it extended to the very edge of the city of the Cosps, and was one reason why that city of the spider-men was never attacked by land, and almost never by air, few venturing over the fungus forest, a fall into which meant death. Night closed down with the limitless expanse of fungi still beneath them.

  At reduced speed they flew on through the night, Merrick and his companions peering intently ahead.

  “We must be near the Cosp city now, I think,” Holk declared. “But it may be that we have missed it—we Corlans know little of its location because few of us have ever reached it and returned.”

  “We’ll reach it,” Merrick said, his jaw setting. “And we’ll—”

  Jurul’s cry stabbed their ears. “A Cosp airboat—attacking!”

  At the moment he cried out Jurul had whirled their craft over, and as it heeled dizzily in midair there shot soundlessly down past it a long craft on which were a score of the hideous spider-monsters, the Cosps! Their poison-sprays were belching the fine rain of death that had missed the Corlan craft only because of its lightning turn.

  “The light-guns!” Merrick cried. “Get it before it can reach us again!”

  The Corlans of their crew leapt to the guns, and as Jurul sent their craft on a slant toward the other a half-dozen shining charges of force clove soundlessly toward it. But the Cosp craft had whirled upward in a turn as quick as their own and was rushing back on a level with them, the long tubes of its poison-sprays outstretched toward them.

  The thing was instantly a wild, whirling duel of the two craft, Cosp and Corlan airboats grappling in the night with light-gun and poison-spray, with three of Kaldar’s great crimsons moons looking down from above and with the fungus forest below. The two airboats circled like fighting falcons, evading each other’s sprays and charges and striving for an advantageous position. Had the Cosp craft one of the darkness projectors they would have had short shrift, Merrick knew, but even as it was, the darting, deadly sprays of the spider-men were each instant harder to evade.

  The wild duel seemed endless to the earth-man, but in reality it was over in moments. Jurul, seeing that the poison-sprays were certain to catch them in a moment more, shot their craft downward as though to a lower level to escape, and as the Cosp airboat dived hawk-like he slanted it up in a giddy curve, giving their gunners a momentary chance at the craft beneath. Down hailed the shining charges, two striking the Cosp craft near its stern, blasting the metal there into a distorted and twisted blackened mass, sending the craft whirling downward.

  Merrick saw it crash in the fungus masses a thousand feet beneath, and in the clear moonlight could see the Cosps leaping forth. Bu
t as the great spider-men did so they were caught by groping arms and disappeared from view beneath the huge fungi, which were crawling from all directions toward them as though informed by some instinct what had happened. Merrick felt sick as their own craft whirled up and onward.

  “A Cosp patrol-boat!” Holk was exclaiming. “That means there must be others out, too!”

  Jurul nodded quietly. “We’ll have to fly higher,” he said. “That ought to take us past the Cosp patrols—the spider-men don’t like the cold of the upper air.”

  “Always passing up a fight,” the great Holk grumbled. “For anyone who fights like you, avoiding a battle is a waste of talent.”

  “Jurul is right,” Merrick declared. “We’ve no time for these encounters—our only objective is the Cosp city.”

  “And when we get there?” asked Holk. “I suppose you know that there isn’t a chance in a thousand of getting out of there once we enter.”

  Merrick smiled. “Leave that to take care of itself,” he said. “Jhalan is in there—and Narna. Once I find them it’ll be time enough to worry about getting out.”

  Holk grinned his approval. “Jhalan has always been thought one of the greatest fighters on Kaldar,” he said, “but I think it will be interesting when you and he meet again.”

  While they talked the airboat had been flying steadily southward, carrying up to a greater height. Soon the wind was cold again about them and the fungus forest a dark plain far beneath. In the west two red moons were setting while eastward the green moon rose. Made tense by their recent battle, Merrick and Holk and Jurul watched alertly for Cosp craft. But in the next hour they saw none, evading them by their greater altitude if any others were actually near.

  Holk stared ahead, his weather-beaten face a mask in the mixed light, Jurul watching as silently as ever at the controls. It was Jurul who gave word at last that they were nearing their goal.

  “Look!” he said simply, pointing ahead and downward.

  “The city—the city of the Cosps!” Holk exclaimed.